Gesture Gems

In creating Gesture Gems, I wanted to explore the currently undersaturated market of interactive jewelry to see if it is possible to create interactive jewelry that is both fun to use and aesthetically pleasing from a purely visual standpoint, with great attention paid to the craftsmanship of each piece.

Attempts at including wearable technologies into jewelry to date are often either boring or unattractive; it is as though by sticking an LED into a piece of jewelry, the designer is exempt from the normal sets of design requirements that creating a piece of jewelry normally implies. I wanted to look deeper into this area and see what exactly is so difficult about including technology into jewelry design—is it a shortage in collaboration between engineers and designers, or perhaps simply a need for more subtlety? In order to investigate this issue, I sketched up a collection of ideas for interactive jewelry designs and executed two of them with painstaking attention to craftsmanship and details. Each of the two pieces involves modifying a plain piece of jewelry bought at Forever 21 and using various techniques to alter their appearance and embed simple LED circuits that turn on during different interactions.

Additional Links.

I welcome your feedback.

I would love to hear any feedback on the project regarding either the concepts or the execution of the final designs. Do you think that these designs are more wearable than versions of interactive jewelry that are currently on the market? What could make them either more interesting or more aesthetically appealing to allow a user to want to wear them on a daily basis?